ungenial, and anti-catholic as it was—has undergone _some_ change for the better, through the convulsions that have overthrown Kings, and scattered Courts. It still retains, albeit, much of its old, hard idiosyncrasy. French music is still, for the most part, “_caviare_ to the general.” It lacks cosmopolitan character. To ensure it a full and hearty welcome, it needs a French education. If these observations be just, it follows that our lively neighbours, in dealing with stringed instruments, as well as with others, would not attain first-rate success in the way of _composition_ for them—and such has been (I submit) the fact. Their real _forte_ lies in _exposition_—in giving outward manifestation and effect to the ideas of others. It is the remark of one of their own countrymen (the able Mons. Choron), that the principal merit of the French School of Music, taken altogether, lies in the various branches of _execution_. And, with reference always to this quality, execution, he adds, “the style in which the French have real and undisputed merit, and indeed, in many respects, have a marked superiority, is the instrumental in general, and especially that of the violin. On this point, the French have always had great pretensions, and _often_ founded in justice.” After alluding to the alleged excellence of early French violinists, and, in particular, of the twenty-four _petits violons_ of Louis XIV, formed by Lully, M. Choron has the candour to acknowledge that he knows not how to reconcile this with the following statement, given by Corette (a furious partisan, by the way, of the French School of Music), in the Preface to his Méthode d’Accompagnement, published at Paris about 1750.—“At the commencement of this century,” says that author, “music was very dull and slow, &c.... When Corelli’s Sonatas were first brought from Rome (about 1715), nobody in Paris could play them. The Duke of Orleans, then Regent, being a great amateur of music, and wishing to hear them, was obliged to have them _sung_ by three voices. The violinists then began to study them, and, at the expiration of _some years, three_ were found who could play them. Baptiste, one of these, went to Rome to study them under Corelli himself.”—Having quoted this embarrassing passage, M. Choron thus continues:—“Be this as it may; since that period, instrumental music has been studied with ardour by the French, and they have made astonishing progress in it. France has now an excellent school for the violin, _founded upon that of Italy_.”